In 1900, a ship from Hong Kong was quarantined in San Francisco after it arrived with two cases of the bubonic plague, or “black death,” on board. Although there were no immediate other cases, it is believed that rats from that ship eventually caused an outbreak in the city. Efforts to confine the disease centered on Chinatown, which was for a time quarantined. By 1904, the disease had claimed 122 lives and following the earthquake in 1906, a second epidemic followed, fed by unsanitary conditions in the refugee camps and by displaced rats. A rat-catching campaign successfully ended the epidemic in 1909.
Honolulu, Hawaii, which officially became a U.S. territory in 1900, was also fighting the plague, which first appeared in 1899. Because the disease had been ravaging China and India, here too, focus was centered on the city’s Chinatown district. Unsanitary conditions had created a breeding ground for the disease, and the health department began burning buildings where the contagion had been found. On January 20th, one of the fires raced out of control, completely wiping out Chinatown.
That same year in London, a major influenza epidemic threatened the supply of coffins. More than 16,000 people died of the flu in Great Britain that year.
In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, began regulating “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors.” The legislation created the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and gave the agency stricter control over dangerous substances. This legislation put an end to the patent medicine industry, since few of the concoctions that were being sold as medicines would be approved by the FDA.
With the publication of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” in 1906, a nauseated nation and president also pushed forward the Meat Inspection Act which cleaned up the meat packing industry, requiring more inspections of animals before and after slaughter, and cleaner conditions in meat processing operations.
In 1906, a coal mine explosion in Courrières, France killed 1,099 men. Miraculously, fourteen miners were rescued after having been entombed in one of the mine shafts for twenty days. The Courrières disaster led to more research on mining safety issues and its impact extended well beyond France.
Rampant speculation and a faltering economy caused the Panic of 1907. There was a run on several large trust companies and J.P. Morgan and several other leading Wall Street financiers were called in by President Theodore Roosevelt to turn things around. Working with the government, they put together a plan where $25 million dollars from the U.S. Treasury was invested in the neediest banks to prevent future runs on the institutions. Many financial historians attribute the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 to the Panic of 1907.
There were a number of significant fires during this decade. In 1900, a fire that began in the town of Hull, Quebec, Canada crossed the river and spread to Ottawa. Seven persons died, and more than fifteen thousand were left homeless.
In 1903, a fire in the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, killed more than 600 of the 1900 patrons who were there attending a holiday matinee.
The following year there were large fires in Baltimore, Maryland, and Toronto, Canada, but the most deadly fire was on board the steamboat General Slocum in New York City's East River where the death toll was 1,021. The ship was carrying 1,300 members of St. Mark's Lutheran Church of East 6th Street on the Lower East Side in what was known as Little Germany. Many of the victims were children.
In 1900, Chinese resentment over European involvement in various key areas of the country was growing. A secret religious society called the Boxers (also known as the “I Ho Ch’uan” or the “Righteous and Harmonious Fists”), began a bloody series of attacks on Chinese Christians and foreigners and eventually took over the city of Peking (Beijing). An international force, including the U.S., France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Japan, and Great Britain eventually quelled the Boxer Rebellion and China was forced to pay $333 million in damages and open further trading with these countries.
In 1904, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on a Russian naval squadron at Port Arthur that started the Russo-Japanese War. The Russians had completed the Trans-Siberian Railway that same year and the Japanese wanted to put a stop to Russian expansionism in the Far East. The Japanese had grown militarily and they surprised the Russians with a string of defeats that spawned anger in Russia and eventually led to the Russian Revolution of 1905. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt acted as mediator and helped negotiate the Treaty of Portsmouth in September 1905, which ended the Russo-Japanese War.
Beyond the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway, there were other significant advances when it came to transportation. In 1903, the U.S. resumed construction of the Panama Canal that had been started in 1880 by the French. Disease and poor planning had forced the French to abandon initial efforts in 1893.
In 1907, the Lusitania, the largest steamship in the world at that time, departed Queenstown, Ireland, on its maiden voyage to New York. On a later voyage, it would set a record by making the trip in four days, nineteen hours, and fifty-two minutes.
But perhaps the most significant contribution to transportation was made by the Wright brothers, who made history in 1903 with their famous flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Ground transportation also got a boost when Henry Ford, along with eleven other industrialists formed the Ford Motor Company and production began on the Model A. As the business progressed, Ford’s assembly lines helped to make automobiles more affordable to the American public.
There were also innovations in the culinary industry. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904, introduced peanut butter and Dr. Pepper to hungry fair attendees.
A Look at the Decade: 1900-1909, Part 1 is available here.
Other articles in the 02 November 2009 Weekly Discovery:
> Spotlight on Ports beyond New York
> Family History Tip: Reading Local History
> Photo Corner
